HONG KONG

Hong Kong is one of those few places in the world where paper currency is still being issued by commercial banks rather than a state-owned central bank or monetary authority (the others are Scotland, Northern Ireland and Macau). Today there are three issuing banks but there were far more back in the 19th century. In total eight banks were given authorisation to issue their own notes but only three survived into the 20th century.

Sadly, all the early notes are rare and nowadays very expensive. Many of them were beautifully engraved by Waterlow & Sons and other leading security printers. Apart from the Oriental Bank (which collapsed in 1884), these early banks included the Agra & United Service